General News

Award-winning Development Team Welcomes New Arrival - Joomla!

The multi-award-winning team of core developers, that developed the world’s most popular content management system known as Mambo, has changed the name of their software to Joomla!

Today, the development team unveiled the Joomla! project’s new home at www.joomla.org.

The Joomla! project announcement comes three weeks after the development team unanimously voted to secure the project’s future in the spirit of open source software.

The development team formed Open Source Matters (www.opensourcematters.org) to distribute information to users, developers, web designers and the community in general.

Project leader Mr Andrew Eddie made the announcement today, heralding the forthcoming release of Joomla! 1.0.0, the team’s first release under the new structure and brand.

“This forthcoming release will be a celebration for everyone,” Mr Eddie said. “It marks the continuation of one of the best open source software collaborations without commercial restraint or intervention.”

He said the baby Joomla! would be a mature release of the project, which includes rebranding, bug fixes and security patches. The Joomla! roadmap about forthcoming releases of the project can be found here.

Core team member Brian Teeman said the release of Joomla! was particularly important to the large user base, which had “supported us through thick and thin”.

“The community is now free to celebrate the new arrival and know the project is in very safe hands indeed,” Mr. Teeman said.

The core team has been working very closely with the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), in New York, to establish the Joomla! and Open Source Matters entities. The SFLC provides legal representation and other law related services to protect and advance free and open source software.

“We are grateful for the excellent guidance and legal advice provided — at extremely short notice — by Mr. Eben Moglen and his team at the centre,” Mr Teeman said.

“During Joomla’s 'gestation', the project has received thousands of emails, posts, letters and phone calls of support from people all over the world,” Mr Eddie said.

“The number of people expressing support is quite staggering — including hobbyists, developers, third-party developers, web designers, business owners, teachers, students, even members of other CMS projects … the list goes on and on,” he said.

“Now the word is out and Joomla! has been born, we are focussed on continuing our award-winning work and taking the project to new heights.”

Joomla! website creation software is released under GNU Public License. Read more at www.joomla.org and www.opensourcematters.org.